Accumulated Homelessness: Analysing Protracted Displacement along Eritreans’ Life Histories

Abstract

This article introduces the notion of ‘accumulated homelessness’ to account for the repeated loss and lack of home experienced by many migrants in Europe today. Through the lens of home and homelessness, we argue that the debate on protracted displacement—often applied only to developing countries—should be extended to Europe. Going beyond the idea of shelterlessness, we consider homelessness as a multidimensional and multiscalar condition which encompasses material and emotional aspects. By analysing two life histories of Eritrean men living in Italy and in the Netherlands, we examine the set of structural, social, and individual conditions leading them to lose home in different places and times as well as their attempts—such as finding accommodation, establishing a community organisation, or moving onwards—to reconstruct home.

Concurrent Displacements: Return, Waiting for Asylum, and Internal Displacement in Northern Mexico

“…We now focus on the ways in which protracted displacement translates into the “impossibility of building a home”: that is, the ways in which for these populations “feeling at home is not a given but an everyday challenge” (Belloni and Massa 2021, 14). Moreover, we extend this notion for the populations in the United States living in conditions of deportability as well as those who were actually deported to Mexico.…”

“…While migration and displacement essentially involve leaving one's home in search of a home elsewhere, people in situations of protracted displacement face increasing hardships in achieving the sense of stability, control, security, and familiarity that normally attaches to places labeled and experienced as homes (Boccagni 2017). Migrants and refugees endure a process of "accumulated homelessness" wherein homes are repeatedly lost and lacking throughout the mobility process (Belloni and Massa 2021).…”

Housing and integration of internally displaced persons: The case of Ukraine in 2018

“…Boccagni (2016) argues that for international migrants, research on homes should focus on issues of belonging, not only on physical structures. Belloni and Massa (2022) introduce the concept of "accumulated homelessness" to shift attention from the physical aspects of shelter for forced migrants to the emotional aspects of home such as security and familiarity. Brun and Fabos (2015, p. 7) discuss how forced migrants experience home "as a site in which power relations of the wider society...are played out."…”

“All we need is a home”

“…Th is lack is produced by a variety of factors, such as institutional neglect and obstacles to accessing decent housing and a stable job. It is also the result of their perceptions of being discriminated against by the local population and the impossibilities of realizing their aspirations and meeting the expectations of the family members they have left behind (Belloni and Massa 2021). Th us, when the feeling of being "out of place" is persistent, the squat represents a provisional stability in which the sense of home overlaps with the awareness that this experience could end at any time.…”

“…4. For an analysis of the concepts of home/house/ being at home among Tigrinya-speaking Eritrean and Ethiopian refugees, see Hammond (2004) and Belloni and Massa (2021). 5.…”